ABSTRACT

This paper employs goods and services descriptions from US trademarks to study spatial diffusion of innovations. Identifying novel, fast-spreading tokens (words) in trademark descriptions, we outline patterns of regional innovation and estimate how distance affects diffusion. Novel trademark tokens are frequently new to English, they capture many unpatented innovations, and their appearance in language co-evolves with their use in intellectual property filings. We analyse the introduction of novel tokens to capture the emergence of innovations and show that spatial distance affects their diffusion. Estimating the intensity of diffusion between locations in the United States, we confirm strong, negative effects of distance.

摘要

本文采用美国商标中的商品和服务描述来研究创新的空间扩散。通过识别商标描述中新颖、传播迅速的标记（词），我们概述了区域创新的模式，并估计了距离如何影响传播。新颖的商标标记对英语来说通常是新事物，它们捕捉了许多未获得专利的创新，并且它们在语言中的出现与它们在知识产权申请中的使用共同发展。我们分析了新令牌的引入以捕捉创新的出现，并表明空间距离会影响它们的扩散。估计美国不同地点之间的扩散强度，我们证实了距离的强烈负面影响。